The 6 month slump

I’m just going to preface this blog entry with this statement: It is getting harder and harder to coherently speak/write in English.  If I lived in a perfect world everyone would be able to understand my joparish (I made that word up) of English, Spanish, and michimi Guarani.  I apologize in advance for my raging grammatical errors, use of incorrect words, and run on sentences.

I had my PTIP (I’m not sure what that stands for either) interview a few Fridays ago with my APCD (aka my boss…we have an acronym for just about everything in PC) in Asuncion followed by another week of training.  I had the weekend free in Asuncion before training started so I decided to travel out to a town called Aregua to visit the “Strawberry Festival.”  The Festival was really neat…it was lacking an actual Festival feel hence my quotation marks, but there were a bunch of vendors selling their delicious strawberry products.  There were strawberry empanadas, strawberry ice cream, strawberries and cream, strawberry juice, strawberry liquor, strawberry cakes, strawberry jam, etc.  All the vendors were set up right in front of all the strawberry fields, so we were able to take a walk to see all the crops as well.  Sunday afternoon a group of us bused out to CAFASA, the resort where training was to be held.  To be perfectly honest, I have no idea what was covered at training because I slept through almost all of it.  Now, before you go and start judging me for being a slacker, let me explain.  I was on my death bed…at least I felt like it.  I had a really high fever for 4 days before I was finally able to get back to Asuncion to visit Medical Mary.  I had a pretty nasty throat infection that completely wiped me out for the week.  On the upside, I had no appetite for about 5 days, and now my jeans aren’t AS tight.

I returned home the following Friday night to face four days of rain (aka not leaving the house because Paraguayans think you’ll melt or something if you’re outside in the rain) and a pretty intense bout of depression/feeling of what the hell am I doing here/with my life?  I tried to come into Peace Corps with as little expectations as possible, but it’s really hard to enter into anything with absolutely no expectations…and I expected a more defined job description/role in my community.  Instead, I feel more like I was dropped into this community with a bunch of strangers I can’t even understand a majority of the time, who spend most of their time laughing at me and gossiping about me.  I was told to find my own co-workers, assess the needs of the community, and design my own projects.  This sounds slightly overwhelming in English, yet alone in not 1, but 2 foreign languages.  Not to mention the fact that I have to ask my friends and neighbors how to do just about EVERYTHING.  My favorite was when I had to call my pesado neighbor who was just begging to come over and sleep with me to help me get my power back on when I shorted the electricity trying to take a luke warm shower.  I was sopping wet in my towel.  Awkward.  Don’t worry; I was fully clothed before he arrived.  But, how do I get to town?  Where do I buy groceries?  How do I get this burrowing parasite (pique) out of my foot?  What are all these black things?  Oh, mouse poop, awesome.  How do I get these maggots out of my dog’s wound?  Why on Earth does my dog have maggots in her wound?  I’d like to make some mbeju (a typical Paraguayan food), what do I need, and how do I do it? How do I say this?  What is that?  What? Que?  Mba’e? I don’t understand.  It’s a very strange feeling, needing so much guidance in some ways, but at the same time having so much more knowledge than these people.  The language barrier is frustrating for several reasons.  Don’t get me wrong I can communicate a HECK OF A LOT BETTER now than when I first arrived, but I still can’t, and I will never be able to speak like I can in English.  Needless to say I was feeling useless and dumb; however, instead of drowning in my misery I made an appointment to speak with one of our head honchos in Asuncion, Dee.  The meeting went awesome.  Apparently most volunteers experience my exact sentiments around month 6…just about where I am now…so I’m right on track with the emotional ride of a PCV.  But she gave me some great advice, she told me some stories from her Peace Corps experience in Burkina Faso, Africa, and it was just a really great conversation in general.  Since arriving back in site, otra vez, I’m feeling on top of the world again.  The term emotional roller coaster, as cliché and overused as it may be, really applies to a Peace Corps Volunteer.  I’m not even kidding when I say it is not uncommon for me to feel every emotion possible throughout the course of one day.  Sometimes I feel like I’m bipolar here.  I went from hating life, spending my days on the verge of tears, wondering what the heck I’m doing here, and being ready to hop on a plane and return to my life in the states on a Monday to feeling very content with life on Wednesday to loving life and feeling on top of the world on Friday.  Besides, I can’t leave now…I have too many pairs of underwear that haven’t fallen out of my pants while playing soccer, there are more Guarani sexual references to be made during lunchtimes (I like them large penises…and you know that large penis from the other day…yeah well, it impregnated me), there is more chisme to be heard about myself, there are more bulls waiting to charge me, there are 19 more months of “I love yous” from strange and maybe not so strange men, and there are approximately 570 days left of operation make a fool of myself every day.  Living life SIN VERGUENZA; the only way.

                I live in a really small community which translates to BIG CHISME.  I try to stay out of the chisme realm because I know la gente are saying all kinds of things about me (and everybody else), and honestly it hurts my feelings to hear some of the things they have to say; however, some of the chisme gets to me.  I thought I’d share my two favorite bits of chisme:

1)      Me and Bailey are having sex.  Not only do I practice bestiality, but I’m also a lesbian now too.

2)      I’m dating one of the town drunks.  Apparently, I like boys again.

Trabajo

• Mondays:  I’ve designated Monday as my charla day in the escuela.  Last Monday I did a hand washing charla complete with a song and dance.  And I’m planning on doing a series of parasite charlas in the upcoming weeks.  Monday afternoons I have a girls group.  I currently only have 3 girls, but they are my favorites.  They’re my best friends in the community, nevermind the fact that they are 14-16. I plan to work on self esteem, values and decisions making, and life planning with the girls…eventually…but this upcoming Monday we’re making banana bread.
• Tuesday is my puesto day where I hang out at our health post.  We usually have a Health Commission meeting at some point on Tuesdays as well.  I’m so proud of the group!  By this coming Tuesday we will have chairs in the waiting room, and curtains on all the windows!  Tuesday afternoons I have my English class.
• Wednesday I go to San Ignacio and I work in the district hospital with an important lady.  I’m not exactly sure of her role in the hospital still, but I know she’s important because she shares an office with the Directora of the hospital.  We’re working on developing a curriculum to train youth to become youth educators on the following themes: HIV/AIDS, STI’s, Addiction (alcohol, marijuana, and crack), Moto safety, and environmental education-mainly combating trash.
• Thursdays: I’ve designated the morning to hang out in the colegio…one day I will start giving charlas in the colegio, but I’m not going to lie…the high school students intimidate me, and I’m not ready yet.  Thursday afternoons I have my English class.
• Fridays are my world map day.  I’ve recently acquired paint and paint brushes to start drawing/painting a world map on one of the walls in the school.
• I have 2 more census to complete…SO CLOSE to being done.  The census has been interesting.  I have found people who don’t have floors in their latrines (hello parasites), some people have no latrines…I couldn’t bring myself to ask them where they used the bathroom, and many people when asked how they disposed of their trash plainly stated, sin verguenza, oh we just throw it.  Oiii vey.  Anyway, I’m planning on holding a community meeting one afternoon this week so we can start improving latrines and start building fogones.
• Youth Taller: I’m working with my closest volunteer neighbor, Danielle, to plan a youth taller this summer.   We’d like for a majority of the volunteers in Misiones to bring 2-3 youth from their community. We’re planning for the first weekend in February and we’re going to spend a weekend with the youth going over topics such as HIV/AIDS, values and decision making, and a career/college/scholarship fair.  I’ve submitted an application for a Grant to help fund the project, and Danielle’s talked to our Gobernador who is definitely willing to help fund the conference as well.
• Summer Education: I’m also working with other volunteers in Misiones and Itapúa (a department next door to me) to develop a summer curriculum.  We’re meeting in a couple of weeks to share our ideas and finalize the curriculum.  We’d like to work with the elementary school kids during the summer to help improve literacy rates (they’re atrocious).

And one last story for good measure.  So yesterday I was so freaking hot and frustrated.  My house is being taken over by ants…and other insects.  You name it, I have it: ants, centipedes, spiders, worms, flies, mosquitoes, frogs, toads—hello Summer!  I seriously have swept out millions of dead ants from my house…and they’re dead because I’m poising them (and most likely myself and Bailey) with this ant killing powder.  I finally bought a fan yesterday only for it to fall over on the bus and not work when I got home.  The men here are driving me nuts.  They are so pesado, frustrating, manipulative, and machista.  Anyway, so yesterday was rough, but I went over to my neighbor’s house to visit…and my already favorite senora secured her place as my favorite yesterday by making dirty jokes and teaching me Guarani insults.  She told me next time a man tries to come sleep with me tell him “Ándate ejapiro tuna” go jerk off on a cactus….yessssss.

And that’s all she wrote, folks.  Love and miss you all!  Please send me updates, per usual, most of you are slacking in that department.